Cloning for Cures Only Possible With Exploitation of Women
Although one should remain skeptical that research cloning will lead to cures, no therapy could proceed without the exploitation of women for their eggs.
In the unlikely scenario that research cloning led to therapies for even just four diseases – ALS, Parkinson”s, Alzheimer”s, Diabetes – one can estimate how many human eggs would be necessary to cure affected patients.
This estimate, produced by David Stevens, M.D., M.A. (Ethics), Executive Director of Christian Medical Association, is based on a conservative assumption of only 50 eggs per patient, though reports put the need at between 50 – 100 eggs. As no one has reported successfully harvesting stem cells from cloned human embryos, no one really knows what a true success rate will be, though it will probably be worse than in animal models.
Women who are IVF donors average 10 to 15 eggs per hyper-stimulation cycle. The following assumes 10 as the average number of eggs that could be cloned due to the abnormalities found in some eggs harvested that would make them unsuitable for use.
This estimate shows that to obtain enough eggs to seek clone cures for just these four diseases, every woman in the U.S. aged 18 – 44 (approximately 55 million) would have to endure two cycles of ovarian hormone hyperstimulation and then undergo laparoscopic surgery.
ALS –
Affected Patients: 20,000
Eggs Required: 1,000,000
Donating Women Needed: 100,000
Parkinsons –
Affected Patients: 1,000,000
Eggs Required: 50,000,000
Donating Women Needed: 5,000,000
Alzheimers –
Affected Patients: 4,000,000
Eggs Required: 200,000,000
Donating Women Needed: 20,000,000
Diabetes –
Affected Patients: 17,000,000
Eggs Required: 850,000,000
Donating Women Needed: 85,000,000
Totals ->
Affected Patients: 22,020,000
Eggs Required: 1,001,000,000
Donating Women Needed: 110,100,000